Rudd, the panty thief and the hangman

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and church representative Alan Wakeley following the presentation of the Family History at Kirribilli House this morning.Photo: Craig Peihopa, Timeline Photography

Yuko NarushimaJuly 31, 2008 - 1:04PM

The Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, has been presented with a
two-volume compendium on his family links to petty criminals,
including an English street urchin sentenced to death for fleecing
an eight-year-old of her dress and underwear in a toilet.

The volumes were given to Mr Rudd at Kirribilli House this
morning by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, who
hailed the Prime Minister's geneology as "true Aussie
pedigree".

The books tell the tale of Mary Wade, the Prime Minister's
paternal fifth great-grandmother, who had survived the gritty
London streets by sweeping streets and begging for food before
getting into mischief with an older girl in 1788.

Together, they "coaxed an eight-year-old girl into a privy where
they stripped her of her dress, petticoats, a linen tippet, and a
cap and absconded", the books say.

Ms Wade was tried at the Old Bailey where she declared: "I was
in a good mind to have chucked her down the necessary and I wish I
had done so.".The "necessary" is another term for "privy", an
archaic word for toilet.

She was sentenced "to be hanged by the neck til she be dead"
but, after months in a rat-infested prison, her sentence was
commuted and she was sent to NSW as a convict, aged 12.

Another relative, Catherine Lahey, forged money. Mr Rudd's
paternal fifth great-grandmother was convicted of forging coins
because she could not pay one shilling and sixpence a week for
rent. She arrived in Sydney in 1800.

Another ancestor, convict Thomas Rudd, became a founding father
of Campbelltown. Two streets in the suburb are named after him:
Thomas Street and Rudd Road.

Mr Rudd's other ancestors came to Australia as free settlers,
living in Parramatta, Campbelltown, Wagga Wagga in NSW and
eventually, spreading north to Queensland.

Church elder Terry Vinson, who gave Mr Rudd the books, said
understanding one's family histories gave meaning to one's place in
the present day.